Today’s Hint: How to Bring Dry Wipes Back to Life

My 23-month-old daughter is going through the baby play stage. She enjoys playing with her baby dolls, pushing them in a stroller and pretending she’s changing their diapers.

So, to make the diaper changing play a bit more realistic and engaging for her — and to give me a few more minutes to clean up in the kitchen or get some e-mailing done — I admit that I let her use her real wipe container during pretend changing time.

Needless to say, she’s never satisfied using just one wipe, and the end result is that we’re left with at least a few dried out wipes.

However, instead of trashing these wipes and those that dry out for other reasons, we’ve hit on a strategy in our house for bringing dried out baby wipes back to life, a trick that is today’s hint.

Here’s what we do: We just add a little water to the dried out wipes (we run them under the sink faucet or stick them in a bowl of water). Then, voilà, the newly wet wipes are perfect for real diaper changes, for wiping off our daughter’s face and hands, and even for a bit of cleaning up around the house (with a little soap added).

To be sure, some wet wipe makers aren’t necessarily proponents of this trick, noting that once wipes dry out, they potentially lose their special soothing formulations, and water can’t make up for that loss. In addition, the tactic may work differently with different brands of wipes.

Still, in our house, we’ve found that the water trick seems to work well enough, especially considering that ever since my daughter had a very bad diaper rash as a baby, we’ve used the Earth’s Best brand wipes, which aren’t cheap and which I don’t like to see go to waste.

In addition, when my daughter did have that terrible diaper rash, her pediatrician recommended wiping her by patting her diaper area with a wet washcloth, which essentially is the same thing as the rewet dry wipe. A number of companies, such as Family Bedrock, Attends and Medline, also offer dry wipes that you essentially turn into wet wipes by adding water.

Finally, it’s worth noting that I’m not the only parent who is a fan of this trick. Moms commenting over at What to Expect and BabyCenter also testify that it works.

What do you think of this trick? What are your tricks for bringing dried out wipes back to life and for extending the useful life of wipes? Share your thoughts below.

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